How do you differentiate the fine line between magic, psychic power, and reality warping?

How do you differentiate the fine line between magic, psychic power, and reality warping?

Get rid of two of them.

They can be distinct. Or better yet, what do YOU think is the distinction?

I don't? If some old fucko sits in his tower for ages brewing up some dumb power that lets him warp the fabric of reality with his mind, I have no 2nd thoughts about the matter.
At risk of beating an old horse, I think the expression "Its magic, I don't have to explain shit" or "It just happens" should suffice, unless the setting demands a more in-depth analysis. Because to the average joe, someone using psychic powers or abilitys that warp reality, is just using magic.

They can be distinct.

Maybe in your setting.
In his and mine it's just called "magic"

Magical power is a more "natural" power. It can exist on it's own, without humans, or any intelligent beings for that matter, causing or creating it. Like magical forests or something.

Psychic powers are more focused on the mental aspect of sentient beings. Psychic powers can intersect with magic, the ability of psychics to enter minds, and the ability of wizards to enter dreams, for example. But it's always distinct in it's source. It is generated from the will of the user, and no spell is ever cast, nor is any incantation ever uttered. It's pure will, translated from the inside of the mind to the outside world. All of it is always generated internally, which isn't necessarily the case for magic.

Reality warping powers are a more raw and uncontrolled type of power. It's the easiest of the three. Reality warping powers do not need to make sense, nor do they need any sort of internal consistency. You can have things just popping into existence and then popping out. You can have cracks floating in the air, as if they were cracks in reality. You can have ordinary wood flowing like water. This lack of logic makes reality warping really popular with eldritch characters, for whom strange and nonsensical powers can reinforce their air of incomprehensibility.

That's how I see it anyways.

One uses magic.
One uses psychic power.
One warps reality.

I mean, it's pretty simple man.

Magic is like cheat codes input by movement and sounds.
Psychic power is sheer force of mind.
Reality warping is things magic and psychic powers can't do.

So Magic = normal cheats, Psychic = metagaming, Reality warp = Action replay

Psychic power is merely a type of magic. And arcane magic employs plenty of reality warping.
Actually, I like to think that all magic is inherently psionic, it's just that pure psionic magic has not been refined to exhibit a specific form/fulfill a specific function.

Magic = Fantasy
Psychic = Sci-Fi
Reality Warping = Superhero

magic: using an external force to do your biding
psy: powah of your mind
reality warping: is a result, not a tool.

Magic comes from one's academic learning of magical practices, and is performed by the use of spell ingredients, somatic components, and precise rituals for casting. But you can totally cast fireballs at any time with no limit as long as you have enough stuff for it.

Psychic Powers come from your brain's inherent ability to overclock itself. Usually it's mostly telepathy and telekinesis, while magic would create some new force, all a Psychic can do is use what's already there.

Reality Warping is temperamental because it is an inherent power that stems from someone's emotions. Mastering your ability to reality warp means mastering yourself, and until you do so you are a danger to yourself and others. However, if mastered, the universe is your bitch, and you become unbeatable.

Magic is the ability to draw power from the world around you; thus places such as an old forest clearing will allow for stronger effects compared to a city centre. This means that magic is quite restrictive, but is also very powerful when studied and managed properly with masters of magic being able to create natural disaster or remove a plague from a city populous.

Psychic abilities however draw from the mind of the user and, with practice, the minds of others. Compared to magic this power is far more limited, with large scale abilities requiring intense concentration. However location is not a factor anymore, and the effects are more precise. Due to the nature of psychic powers they are also much quicker depending on the clarity of the users mind.

Reality Warping is exceedingly powerful and yet very hard to notice. Whereas magic and psychic powers require a source of power, reality warping does not. At least, not in the sense that is measurable. Low level reality warpers are mistaken for psychics due to the fact theu merely bend rules, mid level reality warpers are mistaken for magic users owing to the scope of the effects they create. Nobody knows about high level reality warpers, since their effects on the world are so wide you've probably been affected your entire life without knowing it.

>What's the difference between fictional things that have basically interchangeable definitions?

Of course it depends on the setting, you faggot. OP specifically asked how YOU handle it, as in, in YOUR setting. Now are you going to contribute to the discussion, or are you going to waste your posts spewing inane memes?

>in YOUR setting
OP did not say that.

Reality Warping is always casual, you just kind of gesture loosely and crazy bullshit happens
Psychic power always has a lot of NAAARRGHH and putting your fingers to your temples and flexing
Magic is very intricate with lots of bullshit.

Literally

>How do you differentiate the fine line between magic, psychic power, and reality warping?
you don't they are all magic with a different name slapped on to give you a false sense of variety

Marisa is right, it's just all magic

Whatever you say, reality deviant!

>encouraging OP with replies AND images designed to broadcast your butthurt

If you really, REALLY wanted OP to stop making the same threads day in and day out, you would just stop replying altogether.

It's all the same thing with slight different approaches and philosophies attached to it.
The base of it is still the same.

They're not mutually exclusive unless you explicitly define them as such. Magic can give you psychic powers (i.e Dishonored), psychic powers can be magic (i.e vampires), psychic powers can warp reality (i.e FEAR), reality-warping can have some serious psychological bullshit going on (i.e the Warp), and magic can definitely warp reality (i.e Dragon Age).

That's not magic that's deus ex machina. Look up how Brandon Sanderson comes up with magic systems.

Reality warping is more a concept than a classification.

Magic is generally an external force, used by someone with the correct knowledge. This changes from setting to setting, but generally it comes from either outside the body, or is the bodies energy itself.

Psychic powers are mental in nature. Using The index series as an example, its impressing ones idea of reality onto actual reality. Telekinesis, teleportation, and most other psychic abilities, but the thing that links them is that they all come from the mind of the user.

But if you mean warping reality as in a unique ability usable by a person, then that would classify as neither, as its unique to itself and is dependent heavily on how its done. If psychic abilities are used to warp reality, its psychic. If magic is used to alter the world around you, its magic. If its something else that doesn't cleanly fall into one of those two categories, its "Unique".

All magic-users have psychic powers, but not all psychics use magic.
Conversely, magic is a broader tool set than psychic powers.

Reality warping is extremely high-end non-magical psychic power.

>All magic-users have psychic powers

I take issue with this statement. There are a lot of systems where magic is a system that simply needs learning, like computer programming or something.

Shh! Despite constantly falling back on principles from that game in discussions like this, we like to pretend that it doesn't merit any attention!

I've always thought of it as something like.

>Magic

Using something inherit to creation to manipulate the nature of things in some systematic way.

>psychic power

Somehow using your mind to effect the outside world.

>reality warping

Not even bothering with the systematic or other ways. Just using pure divine or otherworldly power to edit whatever you please inherit or not.


There is a lot of overlap depending on magic and other systems though. So in some settings this wouldn't work out as well.

>How do YOU differentiate the fine line between magic, psychic powers, and reality warping?